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Váru (Indian Elephants)
Incredibly powerful and destructive, few can withstand an elephant charge. These beasts also carry men with missile weapons to provide support and snipe at enemy troops during the battle. Description Towering high above the rest of the battlefield, the war elephant is indeed a sight to behold. The thick skin of this pachyderm makes it hard to bring down, and its strength can crush many an obstacle in its way, making it an invaluable weapon to any general, Indian or Mleccha, who may wish to utilise it in combat. The elephant is covered with rugs or padded cloth, and on its back a wooden tower holds two warriors armed with bows. This tower would have been made as light as possible, probably from wood, bamboo and leather, and was fastened with leather straps or chains over the elephant's chest, backside and belly. Sometimes, elephants may have been painted with different motifs, often with symbolic or religious meaning. A mahout, or "elephant-driver", is also seated on the beast's neck, from whence he directs it with a goad. The warriors in the tower are equipped with longbows of the kind used by much of the infantry. The warriors wear no armour except the occasional leather corselet of the type seen at Sanchi, and are dressed in everyday clothing. They wear quivers of hardened leather slung across their backs, and there may also have been spare quivers in the tower, to prevent the archers from running out of ammunition. The patterns on the shields on each side of the tower are based on murals from Ajanta. Elephants are best used as cavalry screens, where their presence can scare away enemy cavalry. They can also be used to ram through an enemy battle line, though they are less useful when faced with loose order or phalanx infantry. Beyond their obvious use against enemy infantry or cavalry, they can also be used in siege combat, battering down wooden gates and walls with ease. They are highly vulnerable to better prepared and fortified installations, though. Their greatest vulnerability is against skirmishers, slingers and archers, who can pepper them with missiles - eventually toppling them by virtue of their cumulative impact. To counter the effect of enemy skirmishers, a wise general will arrange his own skirmishers in opposition, or try to maintain constant attacks upon each individual group. Historically, elephants had been used in battle at least since the Vedic-Aryan tribes first arrived on the Indian subcontinent. Depictions of elephants on seals are known from the Indus civilisation, but whether they were already used for war at this point is not known. However, in the Vedic period, elephants were quickly domesticated and trained for war. During the Mauryan period, as the importance of chariots declined, the importance of elephants grew dramatically. According to Megasthenes, Chandragupta Maurya had over 9,000 elephants in his army, and nobody except the king himself was allowed to own an elephant. Elephants were one of the arms of the traditional Indian four-armed army, or Caturangabala. According to Kautilya in the Arthashastra, war elephants were used to break up compact forces and trample the enemy. Furthermore, the elephants could frighten the enemy, and even break down gates and fortifications. In addition to these battlefield uses, the elephant could also be used as a transport during marches or while the army was encamped. When the army was arrayed for battle, the elephants were placed in front, where they could be driven straight into the mass of the enemy army. It seems as though most Indian war elephants in fact were not equipped with a tower from which the warriors fought, but most depictions seem to show the riders mounted directly on the elephant's back. However, most of the depictions of elephants on reliefs, such as the ones from Sanchi, do not depict elephants in actual battle, so it cannot be accurately deduced whether this was always the case. The murals at Ajanta show elephants in battle, and though some warriors seem to be seated directly on top of the elephants, one of the major battle scenes seems to show the elephants carrying some sort of platform on their backs, where the warriors are stationed. Further, javelins seem to be stacked on some of these platforms, which could imply that they are to be interpreted as towers. In addition to this, a Seleukid depiction displays an elephant with an Indian mahout, clearly carrying a tower with warriors, which is also in line with Aelian's description of Indian war elephants carrying towers. Foreign powers were also interested in utilising Indian elephants in battle. Most powers that conquered northwestern India, such as the Saka, Baktrian Greeks, and the Gondopharid Indo-Parthians, made use of elephants in their armies. But in addition to this, elephants were bought or taken from India to be employed elsewhere. After the war between Seleukos Nikator and Chandragupta Maurya in the late 4th century, Seleukos gave up a large swathe of land in exchange for 500 elephants as part of the peace arrangements, which shows the importance of these animals. Indian elephants became an important part of Hellenistic warfare, being used as far away as Italy by Pyrrhos. Even Antiochos III received some elephants as a tribute from the Indian King Subhagasena during his Indian campaign in 206 BC. Category:Units Category:Units available only in EB2 Category:Makedonia Category:Epeiros Category:Ptolemaioi Category:Pergamon Category:Arche Seleukeia Category:Pahlava Category:Saka Category:Baktria Category:Takashila